Salvarisonnes

Lescatie may be a city-state, but that doesn't mean the dominion of the crown ends at the walls. Sitting at the center of a fertile valley, with the bounty of its fields and the protection of its mountains, it was only to be expected that more towns and villages would be established, each paying homage to the capital. After Lescatie itself, the largest settlement within the kingdom is the walled city of Salvarisonnes.

Famous for its fortifications, Salvarisonnes resembles a castle as much as it does a city when one approaches it from the road. In times of strife, the walls have never been breached; even when the city has not been besieged in years, they remain a local icon. One point of local pride holds that not even Matto the Great himself could break the walls - in fact, during his conquests, his army was defeated at Salvarisonnes without the loss of a single man.

As the legend goes, when Matto's forces besieged Salvarisonnes, the walls held for many months, until the defenders were wracked with hunger and supplies were running thin. The ruling Duchess then decided to let a fat pig - the last the castle had at its disposal - loose through the gates, and the invaders, seeing that their enemies were seemingly well-stocked enough to be willing to sacrifice a pig just to taunt them, surrendered then and there. Even though Salvarisonnes would pay fealty to Lescatie in time, its people still celebrate it as the city that not even a great king could conquer, and a festival has commemorated the siege ever since.

Aside from its walls, the city is also defended by a firm garrison of knights and soldiers, among them the Order of the Lily - the finest fighters in the kingdom's ranks, who have among their tasks the personal protection of the Matriarch and the Royal Family. The city's fearsome reputation as an impenetrable fortress is owed in no small part to these knights, and they may often be found patroling the streets among the city's guard.

The city is located on the northern shore of Lac du Salvarisonnes, facing Lescatie to the south; a ring road encircling the lake links both cities, and one can travel from one to the other in about half a day. Ironically enough, for all of Salvarisonnes' defenses, it was unable to mobilize its forces fast enough to break the siege of Lescatie during the revolution. Since then, a few forts and waystations have been built along the road to spread the garrison more easily and allow for quicker response to any threats, and the knights of the Order of Lescatie regularly circulate between the two cities along this route, stationing themselves for a time at each outpost along the way.

Although the city rose to prominence for its defensive strength, its important location - and its safety from brigands - made it an important stop for merchant caravans, and over time it grew wealthy, developing a robust economy of its own. Today, the streets boast as many homes, shops, and markets as they do guard posts. Salvarisonnes is, in particular, known for its blacksmiths; the local guild enjoys great power by virtue of the fact they supply the knights of the Order of the Lily, and in return are protected by their swords.

The seat of power in Salvarisonnes, located on a small island in the lake and jointed to the mainland by a bridge, is the Citadel of Salvarisonnes. In addition to housing the administrative facilities of the city, it also serves as the barracks and armory of the Order of the Lily, and provides housing, stables, and training grounds for many of its members. Between the chokepoint of the bridge and its powerful garrison of well-trained and equipped elite knights, if besieging Salvarisonnes is difficult, taking its citadel would be an even more daunting task.

The upper level of the Citadel of Salvarisonnes comprises the personal residence of the Matriarch and her husband, and an enchanted door connects one room to the Holy Apartments in the Royal Palace of Lescatie to allow for easy transport from one city to the other. Before Wilmarina came to power, the city was under her family's control, and when she became Matriarch her family holdings were merged with those of the Cult of Voltan. However, with her newfound duties, she has little time for day-to-day governance, and entrusts power to Count Tancred Berger, who runs the city in her absence. The Count is a pious and dutiful man as long as the Matriarch is looking - when her back is turned, however, he covets power for himself, and has long been embezzling money from the city's coffers for his own estates. His reach is limited by virtue of the fact that the Matriarch keeps the Order of the Lily close, and they answer solely to her; he knows that they would easily dispatch of him if they felt the need. If the knights were to be indisposed for whatever reason, however, he would not hesitate to make a move.

On the Origins of Magic Items

In the Lunar Lands, the creation of a magic item isn't as simple as spending a bunch of gold and time to enchant something. Sure, items can be deliberately enchanted. But so too can they become magical.

My setting is a low magic one - I like to treat magic as something rare and unknown, not something that everyone sees every day. To do that would be to strip it of everything that makes it out of the ordinary, beyond the mundane - everything that makes it magical, really. But just because it's rare to see someone work magic doesn't mean that magic itself is unseen. In fact, there is magic in everything. Every rock, every tree, every blade of grass has its own life force, and that force permeates the physical world - sometimes imbuing objects with its power, and making them something more.

The details of how, exactly, this works are difficult to describe, or ascribe any consistent patterns to - such is magic. But items don't just become magical for no reason; they gain power over time, carrying the memories of every hand that used them and every use they provided their masters. Every time one uses, or so much as touches, an object, a little bit of their soul is imprinted on that object. And with enough use, that can force can build up in that object - and begin to alter its properties.

It is for this reason that magic items tend to be ancient. They might not always have been magic, but over many long centuries of use, they accumulate more and more life force. Often, this leads to them becoming especially good at the tasks they perform. If a sword has cut off a thousand heads, perhaps it will be guided toward the necks of its foes. If a ring has been passed down for generations of thieves, who always held onto it while sneaking around unseen, perhaps it will make its users' footsteps quieter - perhaps it may even evolve again to make them invisible.

Other times, an item may be imbued with a great amount of magical energy all at once. Those items that were used in great heroic deeds, for instance - those events that only happen once or twice a century - remember the heroics they were used in, and as the weave of fate is altered, so too does the item feel that, and seek to recapture its glory. Suppose, then, that that sword was used to slay an ancient dragon, one no warrior could hope to overcome - then it may develop a taste for dragons' blood, and hit those creatures harder. Or suppose that one of the line of thieves that hold that ring clutched it tight to their chest as they prepared a grand escape from an impenetrable fortress that none had ever escaped from before - then, perhaps, the ring might develop the ability to always guide its wearer toward the way out of a tricky situation.

There is a downside to the empowering of items that acquire life force, of course. The more the item grows in power, the more it may begin to develop a mind of its own. The memories and personality traits of past wielders may be imprinted upon it, and it may in turn pass those on to those who use the item next. An item with a particularly strong force of will may begin to influence the thoughts of its user, using them to achieve its own goals. They may subtly guide their thoughts to what will suit the agenda of the spirit inhabiting the item, or they may cause the user's personality to resemble the previous owner of the item. Magic, after all, is not something to be trifled with lightly.

Orphys, the Blade of Kings

Artifact

One such example of how magic items work in the Lunar Lands can be seen in the sword Orphys - the sword wielded by Matto the Great in the many battles and conquests that forged the kingdom of Lescatie, and which he used to slay the dragon on the site of the city's founding. Though it was forged as nothing more than ordinary steel, the great deeds the sword has performed wrote a record that caused its power to swell - and that power would only grow with time, as the sword was passed down from one king to another, remembering the actions and deeds of each.

Currently, the sword belongs to the Matriarch, as a symbol of her office as Grandmaster of the Order of the Lily. It is used to knight new inductees to the Order, and in her days as a paladin she used it to fell many a foe. It is held at the Citadel of Salvarisonnes, the headquarters of this knightly order, for safekeeping - but its power is legendary, and if one was to brave the castle's defenses to claim it for themselves, it would prove a mighty weapon indeed.

In its normal state, Orphys has the stats of a +2 longsword. It can be used without attunement in such a state. However, if attuned, the sword instead gives +3 to attack and damage rolls, does an extra 2d10 radiant damage against fiends, undead, and dragons, and can grant Advantage on saving throws against spells to all friendly creatures in a 10-foot radius if held aloft as an action. At the same time, one who is attuned to the blade also becomes under the influence of its life force - a life force composed of every great king and hero of Lescatie who has used the sword, many of them sworn to the Cult of Voltan and to the values of righteous rule and protection of those in one's charge.

When attuned, Orphys behaves as a sentient item with the ability scores INT 15 (+2), WIS 14 (+2), CHA 17 (+3). Each day the user is attuned to the blade, or if they act in a self-interested or dishonorable fashion unbefitting of an ideal king, they must make a Charisma check opposed to a Charisma check from the blade. If they fail the save, they must then make a DC 15 CHA save or fall under the sword's control.

While this happens, their INT, WIS, and CHA saves are replaced by those of the sword, and they are incapable of acting selfishly or dishonorably; the DM may veto any player actions that they feel do not fit that of a great ruler of men (if you've read Beowulf you should have a good idea) and force the player to pick an alternate course of action. This effect ends if the user drops the sword (they will not do so voluntarily if under its control) or until the next dawn; the user does not get to reroll the save if they take damage.

Names in the Court of Lescatie

As a preface, it appears that when I came up with the Year of the Gazetteer, I was - as one of my players put it - "ahead of the curve by exactly the right amount to accidentally align with the curve perfectly." I had no idea that Lore24 was a thing until just now, and certainly not while I was planning this out. If I knew, I would've just done that. Regardless, I'm already past the point of doing one entry per day. Oh well - I'll keep with what I was doing.

This list is numbered as a d20 roll so that it can be used as a random encounter table, if one wishes. If any of these sound like player characters from a previous campaign, there's a nonzero chance it's because they are.

1. Castor VI, the King. Rules de jure, though the authority of his position has been curtailed by the manueverings of the nobles and clergymen in his circles, and he largely languishes in the palace, making the right decrees and proclamations when people tell him to. Despite the new Matriarch's goals of cleaning up corruption, he still trusts her enough to sit back and let her do the heavy lifting. As a side effect, though, if he has to make any important decisions on his own, he has little experence to do so.

2. Francia de Vyonnes, the Queen. Born to a noble family in one of the neighboring City-States and married to the King to secure an alliance. She has genuine feelings for him, but he sees their marriage as merely a political one and regards her with casual disinterest most of the time, seeing their marriage as a formality. This does not stop them from having a love life that has become the subject of many obscene rumors among the lower classes. Constantly lethargic, and mostly nods and agrees with what her husband says publically.

3. Camille Renee-Dubois, the Princess. A bright-spirited and kindly young woman, born shortly before the revolution, and raised without constant meddling of conspirators around her as a result, she holds onto her ideals and has a sense of adventure that has taken her to seek errands in foreign courts as a way to see the world. Polite and well-spoken, and believes in the ideals of noble decorum and responsibility, but with little mind to shake up her social standing. Secretly, on one such adventure, she was killed by a particularly intelligent mimic, which has taken the form of the princess and integrated itself into the royal family out of genuine remorse.

4. Jean-Luc, the Prince. Elder brother to Camille, and the heir-apparent to the throne, but felt jealous of the attention heaped over his sister in spite of her station behind him when they were growing up, which made him withdrawn and vindictive. He feels that his father wastes opportunities to claim a foothold in the court, believing that if he had a proper head on his shoulders the family could shake free of the Cult of Voltan and elevate itself out of its irrelevance - and he's willing to play by his own agenda to further that cause, if need be. Has figured out that the Princess isn't human and hopes to find a way to expose her in order to create a crisis he can take power through, but he doesn't have the evidence to prove that yet.

5. Wilmarina I, the Matriarch. Head of the Cult of Voltan, chaplain to the court, and de facto ruler of Lescatie. Previously a paladin of the Order of the Lily, and though she hasn't taken up a sword in years, she's still well enough renowned for her exploits in battle for people to think twice about angering her. Unlike previous high priests, she has spurned excesses and devoted her attention toward advancing the cult and building bridges with the populace and with other lands, and she handles the task with a sense of duty and seriousness. This is a lot of weight on her shoulders, though she surrounds herself with trusted officials to help shoulder the burden. It also means she constantly has several irons in the fire and tries to keep up with too many plots at once.

6. Elton of Chaufours, the Patriarch-Consort. Wilmarina's husband, originally a serf of her family's estate. Their marriage was a controversial one - not only for there being a married high priest for the first time in years, but also because of the differences in their social standing - but their love is genuine. He embodies the image of a man of lower class suddenly elevated into wealth and eager to flaunt this fact, and although he has no real power (no one trusts him with it anyway), he is eager to display his status through his exquisite tastes and foppish apparel, often quoting philosophy he doesn't actually understand.

7. Lanselm Broduer, Grandmaster of the Order of Lescatie. The leader of the knightly order of paladins devoted to the protection of Lescatie and the cause of Voltan's will. Young for his status, as he was appointed by the Matriarch to replace the corrupt leadership of the Order before him. He has yet to oversee a major military engagement, but prefers to hire his knights out to foreign powers to strengthen diplomatic ties and to let them pursue their own goals - and he himself has volunteered on many a quest in order to prove his worthiness to any nay-sayers, always being quick to pick up a lance. His bold nature hasn't landed him in any major trouble, but then again, he hasn't been needed for any major emergencies yet.

8. Yves de Mastoc, the Spymaster. Appearing as a jovial rotund man with a thick beard and a goblet of wine never far from his side, he plays the part of a boistrous fool who overindulges himself in merriment - though this is all an act to throw off attention to his true cunning nature and strategic mind, and he has agents throughout the City-States and beyond. Sometimes gets so into his act that his body can't take it; his consititution is actually quite weak, despite the excesses he enjoys.

9. Iosephus of Golnir, a paladin of a Marsean order who came to Lescatie on pilgrimage and ended up being embroiled in a brewing revolution. Helped to lead the charge during the overthrow of the previous Patriarch, and earned the honor of the court for his valor. A long-suffering and patient man who wants only peace and understanding, he acts as a mediator in conflicts and tries to keep things from getting too out of hand among the court, as well as helping to train knights. Has many stories of his past exploits to tell for the curious.

10. Felix, an albino runaway, former bandit, and occasional prophet. Iosephus took her under his wing to try and set her on the right path, and they eventually married - and she eventually began seeing visions of the gods, which became an important turning point in the revolution when she argued that it was within Voltan's will. Despite her husband's best efforts, she's still greedy and has poor command of ettiquette, let alone any reasonable knowledge of politics, but he keeps her on a short leash to try and prevent any disruptions, and the court keeps her around as part of the council as an outside voice to represent the interests of the common people, as well as in case she has any visions to guide them with.

11. Lucienne du Champs-du-Sud, Knight-Commander of the Order of the Lily. The most senior official in Lescatie's most elite order of knights, that which serves as the personal bodyguard of the Royal Family and the Matriarch. Though not of noble birth, she was appointed to the Order by Wilmarina when she was Knight-Commander, and was hand-picked to take her place when she became Matriarch. Officially, this was because she was impressed with her fervent and unquestioning loyalty and her fighting skills; more practically, the two look remarkably similar, and sometimes switch places with one another in public appearances to fool would-be assassins.

12. Maurice de Laurent, the King of Arms. The official who maintains records of all heraldic honors in the kingdom, and advises the court on matters of ceremony. Although the King and the Matriarch have the authority to knight others, formally such matters must go through the King of Arms first, though he has never disagreed with their word. His position is largely a ceremonial one, but he considers it important nonetheless, conducting himself with pomp and circumstance and delivering fiery speeches about the importance of tradition.

13. Roselle Comtes, the Mistress of the Hawks and Hounds. A position responsible for the management and oversight of the animals used in royal hunts. She is an overly friendly and gregarious woman, always quick to greet others and showering them with compliments, perhaps because she spends more of her time in the company of animals than people and feels starved for human contact. Nevertheless, she considers her job to be a great honor and is fiercely protective of her charges.

14. Acelin Meunier, the Court Musician. A famed minstrel entrusted by the court to perform at feasts and other occasions, as well as to oversee jugglers, actors, poets, and other such entertainers. He lets the fact that he performs for the King and the Matriarch get to his head; in his mind, this is an indication that he has achieved mastery of his craft beyond all others (why else would they pick him over someone else?), and he is keen to hold that over the heads of others he feels treat him with disrespect.

15. Donatien Gosse, the Court Magician. A dour, withdrawn old man who lives a reclusive life in his tower in the palace, rarely coming to court unless his aid is needed to presage coming events, to place protective wards over armies, or to interpret the tidings of the stars. He is spiteful of the Court Musician and hates it when people get the two of them confused; he views Acelin as a fool who cares only for spectacle, and that his magic is not a mere show, but a powerful force worthy of awe and respect. He is aware that other court magicians perform as entertainers, and he sees this as disrespectful and a waste of talent. Spends most of his time studying the stars or working on his experiments, not all of which he has shared with the rest of the court.

16. Deocar Leblanc, the Archimandrite. The abbot of the Brothers of Saint Matto, a Voltanite monastic order headquartered in the Silent Quarter of Lescatie, and appointed to the court as the official responsible for the oversight of all monasteries and convents within the kingdom. Spends most of his time at the palace rather than at the monastery, and has taken a liking to its comforts - by some accounts, too much so for a monk, but he maintains that there's nothing wrong with it and that he is only respecting the honor bestowed to him. To add further controversy to the matter, there are rumblings of dissent from some monasteries arguing that a Voltanite is in no position to make decisions about how the brothers and sisters of other cults conduct themselves.

17. Klaus Holt, the Jester. A foreigner from Vardessy appointed to the role, with the hopes that someone from outside of Lescatie would feel more at liberty to mock its court and hopefully prevent its members from getting so absorbed in their egos so as to neglect their duties to the people. For whatever lofty goals the court has for his position, if Klaus is even aware of them, he doesn't care, and lives his life laidback and carefree, with a flippant disregard for punctuality or decorum and a sharp tongue that sometimes offends unprepared dignitaries. No one can tell how much of this is a personality issue, and how much is him being committed to his job perhaps too well.

18. Apolline Lechance, the Seneschal. A stern, grim-faced older woman in charge of the servants of the court. She has taken the importance of her position in the court of the highest kingdom in all the land to heart, and is very strict about maintaining the palace at its most orderly to reflect the grandeur such a kingdom deserves (and to impress foreign interests on diplomatic missions). To this end, she is humorless and exacting about her demands, and hard to please, to the point where many servants resent her and mock her behind her back - though never where they think she can hear.

19. Marcilius du Sault, the Grand Louvetier. Renowned as the best hunter in the court, and in charge of leading royal hunts - particularly, those of wolves, most notably the annual Great Hunt of the Wolfwood held to the southeast of the capital. Ironically, he is greatly terrified of wolves, and will do anything possible to weasel his way out of a confrontation with one, meaning that his "hunts" tend to involve more parading and drinking than anything else. On the hunt, he surrounds himself with subordinates should he need to encounter a wolf face to face and commands them to go after it before he gets involved, insisting that "it's better if he stays back to give orders." Secretly, though, he once had a squire who was killed by a wolf when he froze in fear rather than confront it, and this is his greatest shame to this day, believing it makes him unworthy of the honors.

20. Guy Baudin, the Grand Boutellier. Officially the chamberlain to the king and in charge of carrying the keys to his bedchambers. He is also charged with the maintainence of the wine cellar and in procuring wine, as well as planning and conducting feasts and banquets. This is particularly important when it comes to the kingdom's Wine Festival, in which he is always in attendance to deliver wine to the royal household. Somewhat absent-minded and prone to malapropisms in his old age, and easily intimidated by shows of force. It is not particularly surprising that he is an alcoholic and enjoys his access to the finest drink in the kingdom a little too much - in fact, he has begun smuggling wine out of the cellars for his personal use, which has made him an easy target for unscrupulous merchants to manipulate into passing on some for them to surreptitiously sell as well.

Friday Encounter: The Relic Thieves

This encounter may be used on the road or in a town - either one the PCs are visiting on their way to another destination, or it may come to a more permanent home base.

Background

The Lunar Lands has no shortage of cults that venerate the divine powers, and each cult has its own roster of saints, myths, and important events in its history. Even generations after the fact, the lives and deeds of gods and holy men are remembered by relics - whether those be remains of saintly bodies, devices through which miracles were worked, or those objects that came into contact with the gods themselves. These relics carry traces of divine power, imparting the blessings of the gods upon those who possess them. Their powers vary, of course, but they may range from repelling evil to curing sickness to granting good fortune, and everything in between.

Naturally, this has made the trade - and in some cases, forgery - of relics a lucrative underground business. A shrine or temple that claims possession of a relic may draw pilgrims seeking its blessings, and the very connection to the Heavens that relics bring lends legitimacy to the clergy overseeing them. So naturally, there are some who would do anything to get their hands on one. No priest is going to publically condone such illicit activity concerning holy things, of course. But even the most outwardly pious may find the draw of fame and power too strong to resist...

The Encounter

The PCs may come into contact with the relic trade through an encounter with a traveling shrine - one way or another, they will come across a monk driving an ox, pulling a cart on which is erected a small wooden chapel garlanded in flowers and gold leaf. Seated within this chapel is a gilded reliquary depicting a bust of Saint Hilda, a figure revered by the cult of Marseah, the goddess of mercy. In life, Saint Hilda was known for her ability to work miracles and cure blindness and lameness in the faithul, and long after her death, that power lives on in her relics. The PCs may be traveling on the same route as the chapel and pass it on the road, or they may be in a town where it is being exhibited to the public.

The monk, Brecharius, will explain that the reliquary contains a piece of the jawbone of the long-dead saint, and that some of her power still lingers in the old bone. He claims that those who kneel before the relic and recite a prayer will have good fortune, and those who touch it will be cured of illness. Anyone can pray to the relic free of charge; he charges 1 SP to open the reliquary so it can be touched, insisting that such money is to be used as a donation for the upkeep of his monastery.

There is no mechanical benefit to doing this, for the "relic" is little more than a piece of mundane bone (in fact, a DC 25 Medicine check will be able to determine it is not even from a jawbone at all, but a scapula). Brecharius will deny any allegations of fraud in public, going so far as to claim the accusers dishonor the gods by casting such doubts on a holy man. However, if the PCs have treated him politely enough to earn his trust, and if he sees them as capable of such a task, he will take them aside to speak to them privately at the first opportunity to explain:

Brecharius is, in fact, aware that the relic is a fake - but he has not forged it out of greed or malice. Rather, the real relic is claimed by Sister Closinde, a nun who oversees a temple a few days' travel to the north. She does not allow anyone to see the bone or take advantage of its properties. Brecharius doesn't enjoy having to con people out of their money to make ends meet, but he feels that the jawbone would be better served out for the people to revere and to take advantage of the healing properties of, rather than being locked away in a temple vault. Should the PCs seem the type to accept such a mission, he is willing to pay 500 GP to the party if they can break into Closinde's temple, steal the jawbone, and bring it back to him - by whatever means are necessary.

Closinde is unwilling to part with the jawbone - she is a devout follower of Saint Hilda, seeing her as a most noble patron of healers, and sees it as an honor that she would be entrusted with the relic. So too, she feels that it is safer to keep the jawbone under lock and key, fearing the greed of those who would wish to use its powers for their own gain. In her eyes, it is better that the relic never be used at all than to be used to line mens' pockets.

Closinde's temple isn't the largest, but it has a respectable staff, with eight other nuns and initiates (stats as commoners) living in its quarters, and four armed guards on the premises. The guards will patron the exterior of the temple and hold the gate, but will not fight inside the temple unless provoked, as they believe in the holy right of sanctuary, which states that no one may come to harm under a temples' roof. They expect others to feel the same - but those who would attack them or others first are, of course, ungodly ruffians to be put down at all costs.

The jawbone of Saint Hilda is contained in a modest chest in the undercroft of the temple, so as to look inconspicuous to would-be robbers. Ideally, it should be hidden among several largely identical chests, so that searching for the right one would take valuable time and potentially attract unwelcome attention. The chest is also locked, requiring a key that one of the guards carries on his belt, or a DC 12 DEX check using Thieves' Tools to pick the lock.

Further Developments

Should the PCs retrieve the jawbone and return it to Brecharius, he will reward them as promised. However, the real relic does indeed hold the power attested to it - once a day per user, one can say a prayer while touching the relic to cast lesser restoration on themselves. Some PCs may wish, then, to keep the relic for themselves to make use of its powers.

If so, they will find there are two complications to its use. For one, the jawbone is a holy relic sacred to the cult of Marseah, and the goddess will not tolerate its use for ill. Any party that possesses the jawbone must abide the tenets of Marseah - showing mercy to foes who surrender, always entertaining hospitality, providing charity to those in need of it whenever possible, and never demanding compensation unless it is offered to them first. If they do not, Marseah will be angered that a relic of her cult is in the wrong hands, and she will exert her wrath against the party - either subtly through steering them into misfortune (ideally, they should be directed toward scenes that remind them of their failings and those who suffer by them, such as encountering beggars, lepers, or the downtrodden), or, if that fails, calling down plagues and disasters.

Furthermore, even if the PCs are model Marseans, if Closinde survives the heist, she will surely learn of the theft, and she may dispatch agents of her own to try and retrieve the jawbone. For that matter, Brecharius might realize, after a few days go by with no word of the relic or the party's whereabouts, that they have deceived him, and he might look for another band of able-bodied and unscrupulous folk to steal it back. The PCs have entered the relic trade now, and the relic trade is a far deeper and more cutthroat world than one would think!

Landmarks of the Holy City

• The Grand Temple of Voltan is a proud edifice of high spires and golden domes, the holiest site both within Lescatie's capital and the kingdom itself. Seated atop the highest hill within the city's walls, it can be seen from just about any street and square. A great flight of stairs set into the hillside is constantly abuzz with pilgrims, priests, and monks - at least, save for on holy days, where the Matriarch performs an offering of thirty oxen at an altar atop the steps in a grand public ceremony. Tracks down the sides of the stairs are used to guide the flow of blood from sacrificial beasts.
• Just across from the Grand Temple, the Holy Archives is at once a monastery and a fortress, protected by a select guard of paladins and staffed by monks; their duty is such a sacred one that only those who have been raised in the cult since childhood may access the heart of the library. In addition to sacred texts - some dating back centuries and kept carefully preserved - the Archives also house the relics of many saints. More unscrupulous sorts could easily find a fortune within the Archives' vaults, but is it worth bringing down the wrath of the gods - and the many protective wards and guardians that hold them?
• Also within the inner walls that enclose the Grand Temple and the Holy Archives is the Old Fortress, which once housed the barracks, chapel, and armory of the Order of Lescatie - the holy knights who carried out Voltan's will in many wars across the land. Though it still maintains a garrison, most of the knights now live and train in the New Fortress, which was constructed to patch a gap in the city's walls that invaders were (embarrassingly) able to exploit during the revolution, and which faces the exterior of the city rather than being situated at its heart. Even still, the Old Fortress is an imposing edifice, with thick ramparts and cavernous halls that dwarf the skeleton crew that now oversees it. Some say, in fact, that some treasures of the Order's vaults were never moved to the New Fortress - and that there are secrets within that none of the knights living there now know of.
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  The Royal Palace sits at the south end of the city. Here the Royal Family find themselves sequestered in idle luxury; the Matriarch and her husband also have extensive apartments here. As of late, the Palace's great hall has been converted into a council room for visiting diplomats, who pay visit to the Holy City as a sort of neutral forum to discuss matters that concern the various lands, with a round table to put no undue importance on any parties in particular.
• At the northern end of Lescatie is the Classical Quarter, so called because it is home to several scholarly institutes that perform study in old classical tongues. This includes libraries and scriptoria attended to by monks of Mimir, schools of higher learning, and orders that pursue more esoteric goals - all of whom might have some arcane tomes or another, for those who know where to look.
• The Rue Solaire runs from the Classical Quarter to the Temple District, and encompasses much of Lescatie's high society. It is the area where the city's wealthy and powerful reside, and has grown to be a hub of culture, with well-tended gardens and plenty of cafes, artistic studios, bathhouses, upscale markets, and "bathhouses" to be found. Many names of great renown frequent these spots...and many of them have their own secret agendas.

• 
  The Plaza of the Bells serves as one of the largest marketplaces in the city. On most days, it's busy enough, with many shops overlooking the square (which contains a great fountain and a shrine to Nehalennia, the goddess of commerce), but on market days, the Plaza is overtaken by so many stalls that it becomes a sea of awnings and a maze of narrow alleys. In addition to typical market fare, one may find icons, incense, and sacrificial animals being peddled by the representatives of the city's temples. The Plaza gets its name for the basilica that sits along its eastern side, which once announced the time by the ringing of bells - it has long since been replaced by a clocktower, but the name stuck.
• Another of Lescatie's many squares holds the Fatestone, a towering pillar of limestone that has stood in the city since time immemorial. It is said that it may only be moved by the hands of the gods, and no mortal effort has been able to make it so much as budge. When the stone does move, rotating about its base, it is a sign that a great turning point in the world is coming.
• The Rue des Saints is a path that meanders through the streets of Lescatie, passing by statues and shrines dedicated to various saints venerated by the different cults. These range from the celebrated to the obscure, and the statues too range from towering marble edifices to cruder wooden sculptures. Notably, although the procession always begins at the equestrian statue of Matto the Great (himself canonized in the Cult of Voltan), there is no one accepted route, as rival cults and jealous sculptors have added more statues over the years that branched the paths out in different directions. Pilgrims to the city will often pay local guides to lead them through the Rue des Saints, but no guide will lead them down a path that will hit every saint, and to do so would be impossible without significant backtracking.
• If the Classical Quarter is named for the speech of its scholars, so too would be the Silent Quarter. The Holy City has attracted all sorts of monastic orders, and a whole district is set aside for monasteries and convents. Though enclosed within the walls, these facilities operate as isolated communities in and of themselves and rarely interact with those outside of them, hence the name (that, and because of the amount of residents under vows of silence).
• Lescatie has its fair share of guilds, though due to the proximity of authority both worldly and divine, they are limited in the power they can exert in comparison to those of other cities. Still, the most striking guild hall is that of the Guild of the Jam-Makers, which boasts large stained glass windows and elaborate balconies bedecked in sculpture. Many other guilds have noted its grandeur is rather disproportionate to the importance of the guild itself.
• Burning Row is a street with a grim history - it was once where officials of the cult would execute perceived heretics on pyres, and their blackened skulls were mounted on pikes lining the road as a warning to the impious. In practice, this was more often a convenient excuse to bump off political rivals and rule by fear. Wilmarina I's tenure as Matriarch has seen no such executions, but the name remains - and some still note the faint smell of burning late at night.

Art by Nathan Lucas

The Holy Kingdom

If you ask which of the many City-States that span the neck of land from the Greater Halvards to the borders of Taldameer is the greatest, you'll get many answers. But one name that will surely arise is that of the Holy Kingdom of Lescatie. It may not have the great sphere of influence of Fiora or the merchant fleets of Alcasse, but, as the seat of the Cult of Voltan, god of law and rulership, it holds the status of primus inter pares among the cult centers, viewed ceremonially as the reflection of the Heavens on the mortal coil. To that end, it has attained great fame and great wealth as an important destination for pilgrims, and increasingly as a forum of diplomacy between different lands. Though its recent history is one of great upheaval, it has not marred the city's prominence.

Located centrally in a valley, the city's strategic location makes it the nexus of several roads. Like many of the City-States, Lescatie enjoys a modest temperate climate, with grapes being a prominent crop - though its proximity to the Halvard Mountains tempers the warmth of the south.

Lescatie has been a sacred site to Voltanites since time immemorial - one of the earliest Voltanite grottos was found in the caves beneath the Grand Temple, and early Pantheonists migrated from the valley along the Vardess River to spread through what is now Vardessy. However, the history of the Holy Kingdom itself begins with Matto the Great. Believed to have been fathered by a five-horned bull that came out of the sea and impregnated the wife of a chieftain, Matto grew to be a great leader of men, and slew a dragon upon a hill on the south shore of what would come to be known as Lac de Salvarisonnes. Following a prophecy that a city built where the dragon fell would become the capital of a great kingdom, Matto erected a castle there, and over the centuries, the city grew around it.

It was only many years later that the cardinals of Voltan's cult, fleeing the destruction of their previous seat of power, petitioned the king of Lescatie to take up residence in the city, citing the ancient grotto beneath its walls. The king agreed - and over the years, the power of the cult grew and grew, while that of the monarchy dwindled. By the early days of the reign of Emperor Harald IV, it was an open secret that the kings of Lescatie were little more than figureheads, and the real power sat with the Patriarchs. And with that power came greed and corruption, as the elites of the clergy and the nobility enjoyed a nigh-untouchable status thanks to the primacy of their city and the fortunes brought by trade, pilgrimage, and the fertile land. In time, the Patriarchs lost communion with the gods, but continued to hold their status, abusing it to whatever whims cemented their power. Elitism and xenophobia ran rampant. The priesthood grew rich, while the downtrodden were neglected within the walls of the most holy of cities.

About twenty years ago, spurred on by foreign agitators and joined by the kingdom's disaffected, an uprising took hold of Lescatie - and the city was conquered from within in the course of a single night. The cult had grown so confident and complacent in their rule that they feared no invasion, leading them to neglect the city's defenses, and even the armies that defended the kingdom saw the promise of a better life by turning aainst their masters. The reigning Patriarch, Gascon III, was usurped by Lady Wilmarina, a paladin and the Knight-Commander of the very order entrusted with his personal bodyguard, who asserted her rightful claim to the position by divine mandate.

Wilmarina's ascension to the position of Matriarch was not without controversy. Not only was she the youngest person and the first woman to hold the position in generations, she was not part of any monastic rites, breaking a long-standing tradition (and, in fact, married within the first year of her tenure). Nevertheless, she cemented herself as a radical populist by Lescatian standards, establishing a council of dignitaries from many lands and welcoming the voices of outsiders, as well as filling her circle of cardinals with those she trusted to place service to Voltan and to the kingdom above their personal advancement. Since then - per the cult - the balance of the Heavens was restored, and Lescatie has enjoyed peace and prosperity.

But can such peace last?

2024: The Year of the Gazetteer

Let's not beat around the bush. This blog was designed, at least in part, as a repository for lore on my setting, and while there's undoubtedly been that sort of material posted here, I haven't been doing as much as I would like to.

In no small part, that's due to the fact that I don't really know where to start. Cosmology? The nature of magic? Any particular region? Will any of that even be of use to the people who read my blog? As such, the worldbuilding stuff has taken somewhat of a backburner in favor of my musings on game theory and inspirational material. But I do have a setting I want to put out there. And this place is Tales of the Lunar Lands, after all.

Luckily, I've figured out a solution.

We have a new year right around the corner. And in the interests of putting out more content for my blog, and putting more setting information to paper (pixels?), I declare 2024 as the Year of the Gazetteer.

I've always enjoyed gazetteer materials for RPG settings. They're worldbuilding in its purest form - no story, often no game mechanics, just lots and lots of ideas. There's a reason the Mystara gazetteers are so fondly remembered, and the gazetteers White Wolf put out for Ravenloft back in the 3e era remain the definitive version of that setting for me. Even if you aren't intending on running those settings, you can flip through the pages of a gazetteer and soak in the details, imagining what life in the setting might be like or what stories could be told there. As a worldbuilding nerd, I love that stuff. Some of my favorite Star Wars publications are the Essential Guide series, after all. And I feel like it would be just the sort of format I would want if I was to publish more setting material.

How's this going to work? I'll devote each month in 2024 to a different region of my setting, and my output for the blog for that month will be a gazetteer for that area, with details on the local culture, the points of interest, and relevant factions and personalities. I also intend to put out hex maps of each area, or at least parts thereof, because my setting has gone way too long without one. This way, I have the inspiration I need to post more, and I can get more setting content out into the world in the process.

Regular features like Friday Encounter will still continue, but if possible I'll try to relate the encounters to the themes of the spotlighted region that month (they will, of course, still be usable anywhere, for the sake of utility). I'll still post my thoughts on gaming and DMing, too, but they'll be mixed in with the gazetteer posts.

Finally, I intend for most, if not all, of my gazetteer postings to be useful at the table. I understand that not everyone has much interest in listening to me ramble about my setting. That's okay - I'm not expecting anyone to start playing in it. I merely want to get some of my thoughts out there, and to have a place where it's stored online for easy reference. But whenever possible, I'll try to include dungeons, quests, NPCs, and magic items that might be useful for any DM to borrow, whether they're using the rest of the setting material or not. And of course, I often find myself getting inspired by reading the musings of other DMs - I'd be honored to provide that inspiration for others.

Without further ado, I'd like to announce the schedule for the Year of the Gazetteer:

January: Lescatie - The Holy Kingdom

February: Valossa - Isle of Swords

March: Togarmah - Land of the Golden Peace

April: Ukiah - The Howling Steppe

May: Al-Riyah - Emirate of the Winds

June: The Freikantons - Dominion of the Swordbrothers

July: The Sonderlunding Highlands - The Ancestral Lands

August: The Levic Marches - Seat of the League

September: Golnir - Kingdom Among the Ruins

October: The Crownlands - Heart of the Empire

November: The Green Downs - The Halfling Heartland

December: Tennurhaf - The Sea of Teeth

We'll see you then - and in the meantime, happy gaming!